Houseflags of Japanese shipping companies

These house flags from a ships directory chart published by the Japanese
government and appearing in the brochure/book Fune to Hata (Ships
and Flags) published by the Nihon Maru Memorial Foundation in 1994
following an exhibit at the Yokahama Maritime Museum by the same name and
during the same year. Photocopies of the charts were provided by Nozomi
Kariyasu for these images.. Three charts are devoted to Japanese flags.

The images in the photocopies are small, therefore only 34 are either not
repeated or are of enough clarity to allow their representation. In some
instances, the location of objects on the flag are the best approximation
available.Phil Nelson, 11 February 2002

Uda Tomoshiro

Ukon Gonsaemon

by Phil Nelson

Uwajima Unyu K.K.

by Phil Nelson

A white flag with something black in the center that I could bet hard to be a kanji
character. It looks a lot like the chinese character yu (宇).

The Uwajima Unyu seems to have a
website and apparently operates ferries between
the islands of Kyushu and Shikoku. More to the point, if you scroll down
the page, you'll see what must be the current flag of this company: a
red-white-red horizontal triband with a wide white band and a black
character in the center.
Jorge Candieas, 4 July 2006